


The Edge of Breaking

by dreamsheartstory



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:44:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/pseuds/dreamsheartstory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ruby wakes up to the scent of apple pie baking, but nothing is as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Edge of Breaking

The scent wakes her up first. Lightly sweet, tart apples, and cinnamon, underneath the delicate buttery smell of pastry. Regina must be downstairs baking. She always does on rainy mornings. Ruby closes her eyes and stretches, relaxing back down into bed. Dark grey sheets tangle around her and she can’t remember last time she was this relaxed. Peace in Storybrooke always feels like it’s on the edge of breaking. The rain beats against the windows and Ruby lets it lull her back into a half dream state.

Last time it was apple turnovers. The thought makes her hungry, almost enough to wake her up fully and lure her downstairs. She knows Regina won’t let her sneak even one bite until things have cooled though and that’s the only thing that keeps her in bed and not on her way down to the kitchen. Ruby snuggles down, a smile on her lips as she waits to hear the floorboards creak and for Regina to slide back into bed and wrap her arms around her. Life on mornings like this is perfect.

The turnovers though. Ruby had been out running through the forest underneath the light of the full moon. She stumbled into the kitchen in the early morning of the last day bleary eyed and ready for a shower. Life had other plans. Regina had been standing there in a sheer shift pulling apple turnovers out of the oven. The counter was covered in baked goods. Regina baked when she was worried and she always worried on the full moon.

Ruby smiled at the memory, the love she feels from it. She had walked across the kitchen and pressed her Regina against the wall, all thoughts of a shower gone and kissed her. Feeling Regina against her was the best part of coming home after a night run. Regina tasted like apples and home and Ruby ached to feel that again. Her wolf had run for days this time. Arms and legs screaming for a rest she had picked up Regina, and laid her down on the counter. A pie was knocked to the floor and Regina hadn’t noticed until later as Ruby settled in between her legs.

She hears someone moves downstairs and wonders what Regina is up to now. If she just stays in bed Regina will come back up, it’s always only a matter of time and Ruby indulges in the memory of Regina spread before her on the counter. She slips a hand between her thighs running a finger between her folds and finds herself already wet. Just the thought of Regina turns her on, and it feels like it’s been months since she’s been touched. Her body aches with it. She wants Regina to come upstairs, walk back in to find her like this, touching herself unable to wait a few minutes, let Regina know how much she thinks about her. And then how much she means to her. Her fingers circle her clit and she can feel the tug, the taunt pull of the building orgasm. She can feel the way Regina touches her, the way she looks laying out underneath Ruby in the soft morning light. The curve of her breast and swell of her hip. Ruby knows she’s on the edge of breaking, her muscles tensing, begging for release. The image of Regina biting her lip when she’s watches Ruby flits through her mind.

Ruby cries out, trembling.

The door cracks open, “Ruby?”

Emma Swan is standing in the open door, coffee in hand, looking like she hasn’t slept in days.

“I heard you cry out, are you okay?” Emma takes a few steps into the room, “I mean…”

The memories hit her then. The smell of apple pie is gone, the bed is cold, and light in the room is harsh and bright mid afternoon light. A ragged scream rips from Ruby’s throat, more howl than a human voice should ever be. Regina is gone. Ruby screams into her hands, her body convulsing, unable to hold in the pain. It’s been months and this isn’t the first time she’s forgotten, but every time the memories come back it feels like that first night.

She ran down the main street in the cold rain trying to reach Regina before she was sucked into the black swirl of magic leaving nothing but a knife in her wake, name emblazoned on it. Her fingers closed on empty air and she stumbled to her knees. Her throat was raw for days, screaming Regina's name, demanding she return. She has scars from that fall. She can’t shower without remembering what happened. What is left of her heart shatters into a thousand pieces.

Ruby feels the bed shift. Her hands grip the sheets threatening to shred the thousand count cotton. She’s curled up on her knees, forehead pressed against the mattress. Emma’s hand runs down her spine. A growl rips from her throat. Until Emma walked in she had forgotten, there was a bliss in that half asleep space where she felt whole. The hand is gone and the bed shifts a little bit more. Ruby knows Emma has lain down. Emma has been there every day trying to hold her together while they look for Regina. But in that inbetween space where Ruby forgets nothing hurts and Regina will walk through that door at any moment. Regina never walks through the door, it’s always Emma and she hates her for it.

Every morning that she has forgotten makes the next days even harder. She has to deal with the loss all over, just as she was beginning to function again. Just as she was beginning to be okay. Ruby doesn’t want to be okay, not when the California King stays empty and cold. How many sheets has she ruined trying not to tear herself apart? With a precision that comes with the intense focus she has to take to do anything other than feel pain she uncurls her fingers and stretches out. It’s all she has, that forced relaxation, making herself breath again. She is exhausted. She turns away from Emma and shuts her eyes to the light from the window, she can't face either right now.

With breathing though comes crying. Her face is soaked with and she doesn’t know when she started. Maybe she’s never really stopped. Emma’s fingertips brush from her spine to her shoulder and she lets it happen. This is all she has for now, a cold bed, an unused kitchen, a dying apple tree. Emma means well but Ruby’s on the edge of breaking and she doesn’t know how much more she can take.

“We’ll find her.” Her words are soft, hopeful. Everything Ruby is not. She means well, but the apple tree in the front yard is slowly turning black, the fruit shrivelled and bitter. The tree that is tied to Regina’s life force is dying and it will take Ruby with it.

She breaks,

then screams.

 

 


End file.
